The publication (brochure) of Sigma-Chemie Inc. (Houston, U.S.A.) discloses two frames for pipes comprising frame parts with external (lower and upper) and central clearances for pipes. Comparatively thin steel channel sections or the like are used in one of the frames and are provided with steel/rubber pads for pipes, these pads being held together by several threaded bolts perforce passing through them. Shaped frame parts are used in the other frame, these parts being provided with lateral plug-in connecting means and being held together by a steel or plastic belt passing around the frame parts and the pack of pipes. The shaped or contoured frame parts consist of a steel/rubber compound. Both frames entail comparatively numerous components and complex designs, whereby their manufacture is expensive. The versatility is quite low.
The German Gebrauchsmuster 79 08 756 concerns an assembled system for stacking pipes in horizontal and superposed layers. The system comprises a frame consisting of a base support, lateral U-shaped uprights and an upper crossbeam. The base supports are provided with lateral cheeks and stops spaced apart at the top, the uprights being seated between these stops. Securing bolts hold the uprights in their assembly position to the base support, flush boreholes being provided for that purpose in the cheeks and in the uprights. The uprights thereby are vertically affixed to the base support. The uprights are connected in quite similar manner to the upper crossbeam, namely the uprights and the crossbeam comprise aligned boreholes passing the plug-in bores. Several superposed layers of pipes are separated from one another by transverse laths if the pipes include bushes or other projecting parts. Again this frame consists of relatively many individual parts of which handling is laborious and time-consuming and its manufacturing cost is high.
The German patent 31 28 840 discloses a frame for shipping and storing pipes with several superposed frame parts consisting of channel or shaped sections, the particular upper and lower frame parts being connectable by rods passing through clearances in the shaped-section frame parts. The shaped-section frame parts are rectangular sections. Each rod can be inserted by an end comprising a cross-piece each with one leg into one of two transverse boreholes of the hollow section and can pivot in the transverse boreholes. When pivoted upward, they can be moved into the clearance designed as a stop in the direction of the cross-piece. The frame comprises inside, vertical reinforcing walls each of which evinces at its end an externally open clearance. While fewer parts are resorted to in this known frame, whereby assembly and dis-assembly shall be simpler and more rapid, the frame parts on the other hand are still fairly complex and thereby manufacturing costs remains fairly high.